On 09.08.2017 06:33, Kushal Das wrote:
> Here is the next video to watch. Feel free to discus/share your
> thoughts.
>>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqcuzSwySR4
Well that talk indeed is a downer, but it points on many things I
haven't thought of so far - at the same time it makes me expanding ideas
I have thought of so far.
I wouldn't be aware of the impact of sexual harassment in a field like
software development if I wasn't following Kushals tweets, i.e. numerous
re-tweets from @pyladies, @djangogirls and many other women sharing
their experiences with the non-balance there is. I guess the term 'toxic
people' is a perfect match, as it is poison, eating up a community from
the inside.
There's this answer to a tweet [1] I found quite to the point:
original tweet: "Advice to parents: Teach your daughter to say "No"
firmly and mean it[...]"
answer: "Advice to parents: teach your sons not to rape. Don't put the
burden on your daughters."
While this is of course the superlative (and very specific to the men
harassing women problem), it applies on lower and more abstract level as
well: We need to teach our community to grow together. The first and
most important thing here is awareness. This is happening, and it's
happening a lot. We need to be aware of it and consider it in our day to
day actions, as a community can be a fragile construct that may break
too easily.
Maybe an approach to obviate putting yourself and the community in
danger (applies to the Burnout and Money part as well) is to extend the
Open Source philosophy even further;
It's not all about code (although we know that coding is the most fun).
If you're open to yourselves, you will realize more quickly when
something does not work for you. Be honest to yourself and address
problems when they arise, not when they start to break you.
Now there's the maxim of this, which might be quite experimental: If
you're even open source against the community, maybe they see the bugs
in your life and help you to fix them. Contributing to open source is
not limited to coding, but also taking care of each other. That's what a
community does.
Sorry for this lengthy reply, these are my thoughts ;)
Best, Robin
[1]: https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/891394080172683264